Chapter Four
Chapter Four
Just as I'd expected, Kayla's rotation landed her in my department.
Business is business, personal is personal. Whatever she needed to learn, I'd teach her—every last bit of it.
One night, an emergency came in: a Type A aortic dissection. The patient was already in shock.
At the same time, the ER downstairs was taking in casualties from a multi-car pileup, and half the OR's scrub nurses had been pulled.
Kayla had been trained to scrub in during her surgery rotation. I put her on the instrument table temporarily, passing sutures and instruments, with a nurse beside her keeping an eye on things.
"Why me, of all people?"
She muttered it under her breath, resentment in every word. "Ma'am, doesn't this count as using your position for a personal grudge?"
I glanced at her over my mask. "If you earned your scholarship and your commission on merit, then prove it to me at the table."
The operation reached its most critical step: reattaching the coronary ostium.
"Six-oh vascular suture." I held out my hand.
Kayla fumbled—and handed me a four-oh.
Two whole sizes too thick. One stitch with that, and the coronary ostium would tear.
"Wrong suture!" I snapped. "Swap her out."
The nurse beside her took over immediately.
The patient's blood pressure stabilized. When we came off the table, Kayla trailed after me, white as a sheet.
I stopped, looked at her, and spelled it out word by word:
"In cardiothoracic surgery, what you're holding in your hands is a human life. One small mistake is one dead patient."
"The carelessness you showed tonight would get someone killed on a battlefield."
Kayla swayed on her feet, and tears welled up in her eyes.
"Lauren! Do you really have to do this?"
Ryan's voice, hot with anger, came from the doorway.
He strode in and planted himself in front of Kayla without another word.
"She's a cadet! Being nervous the first time at the table is completely normal! Everybody goes through it!"
"Is there any need to crush her like that? Are you teaching her, or are you settling a score?"
I looked at this man who had once stood shoulder to shoulder with me.
And who now, for the sake of another woman, was twisting black into white and trampling over the most basic standards of my profession.
"Major Calloway."
I used his rank.
"There's no margin for error in cardiothoracic surgery. As her supervising officer, pointing out her mistakes is my duty."
"Duty? Looks to me like you can't keep your personal feelings out of it!"
Ryan grew even angrier and grabbed Kayla by the wrist. "Come on, Kayla. You don't need to put up with this from her!"
He walked out with Kayla weeping prettily beside him and slammed the door.
A few of the rotating cadets were already looking at me with fear and resentment.
Just then, my phone rang.
I put it on speaker.
Riley's voice came through loud and clear: "Sis, I found out who runs that gossip account!"
"The candid shot they posted of you—it's the exact same angle as a story Kayla's roommate posted that same day. Even the trays on the table match. And the account's recovery email hint is k***s@. Kayla's cadet email follows exactly that format."
"I've put together the screenshots and the side-by-side. They're already posted online, and I sent a copy to the college's Inspector General office too."
I said "Got it" and hung up.
The break room was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.
The same people who'd been glaring at me with suspicion a minute ago now had their heads down, scrolling through their phones in shock.
Before long, there was a commotion in the hallway.
A handful of people burst in, furious. At the head of them was Madison—Kayla's best friend, the one who'd been loudest with the catcalls on the training field.
She held up her phone and shoved the camera right in my face.
"Lieutenant Colonel Pierce! What exactly do you think you're doing?"
"Even if Kayla did something wrong, did you really have to go nuclear? You're trying to destroy her—you even reported the instructor!"
"Just because your marriage to Major Calloway is falling apart, nobody else is allowed to genuinely care about him? You're just jealous!"
Quite the impassioned speech.
The rotating cadets behind her chimed in, burning with righteous outrage:
"Apologize! You're slandering a female cadet as a home-wrecker with zero proof—have you no shame?"
"Bring Kayla here! Hundreds of thousands of people are watching this livestream, and they're all waiting for her to confront you face-to-face!"
I smiled.
"You want Kayla? Fine. I know where she is."
When Ryan had pulled her out of here, he hadn't headed for the elevators. He'd gone toward the door at the far end of the seventh floor—the stairwell nobody ever used.
I led this crowd of young people straight there.
The closer we got, the clearer the sounds leaking through the gap in the door became.
A girl's low, breathy giggle. A man's murmur.
And a dull clang, like something bumping against the metal railing.
Madison stopped walking. The hand holding her phone began to shake.
The door wasn't quite shut.
Through the gap, everyone could see it: Ryan's uniform jacket hanging over the railing, Kayla pinned against the wall by his body, the two of them locked in a kiss they couldn't break.
Outside the stairwell, dead silence.
I stood off to one side, perfectly at ease, watching those young faces turn white, then green.
"They're... they're..."
The livestream exploded.
